Fonze
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Just for you Bzzrak, another driving story: "Fonze and the 8-Car Pileup"
This was perhaps 6 years ago; my mom was still alive, I was working overnight and attending a University during the day, commuting about 25 miles each way down the interstate. Pretty close to the same spot I got my newest yellow paper from, except going the opposite direction this happened.
I was on my way home from school, no cars near me, about halfway through my 40-48 hour day (work overnight, school during day, back to work overnight, rinse, repeat) driving down the interstate. The time was about 4 PM-ish, so still fairly close to the middle of the day with the sun high in the sky. A clear day; perfect driving conditions.
There are signs that show if there is a backup on the way to the tunnel which read thay there was a couple-mile one up ahead, but it took a little longer to reach it than it seemed (maybe this is what got the other drivers). Well finally I came to the top of a shallow hill and I saw a ton of cars way up ahead; I get closer, see that they are not only not moving very fast, but not moving at all. So I begin to slow down, about a football field away from them at this point and I look in my rearview mirror to check on any cars back there. There were cars back there, and a good amount (all stuck behind a 2-car wall... ugh) but they were also about a football field away. I continue to slow down until eventually stopping, without hitting the car in front of me, and of course the whole time I'm glancing in my rearview because both I like to know what other cars (especially the moving ones) are doing around me and also I'm just kinda paranoid like that. Well as I come to a stop, finally I'm starting to think "hey, these people don't look much like they're slowing down..." After stopping I continued to watch as something I never would have imagined, nor could I ever make up unfolded both in front of my eyes and all around me.
"No, those cars are definitely not slowing down," I thought as the gap between us shortened to a dangerous distance, then to a trivial distance. I was in the left lane of a 2-lane highway. The car directly behind me swerved to the right into the other lane, hitting a car and then t-boning the car in front of me. Somehow during everything (this part I didn't see) a truck lost control in the right lane and hit the side guard rail head-on. Perhaps the chain-reaction on the right side hit him at some point, but I was glancing back and forth to what was happening in front of me and the cars still coming up, so I missed just what happened to the truck. The car behind the car behind me (yeah get used to this, it's a long chain) swerved into the ditch to the left. The car behind them stopped behind me. The car behind them swerved into the ditch and hit the other car over there. To finalize the insanity of it all, the car that actually managed to stop behind me without hitting me also took it in the backside from the next car in the chain of stupid (which may be a bit callous to say, but let's be honest here, sure the hill was only shallow, but how could the cars behind the cars in front have not seen the giant wall of cars stopped up ahead? Lol. Never mind the whole 'follow distance' thing). Somehow, by some unbelievable stroke of luck, my car remained untouched throughout it all.
I sat around for a while with everybody, listening to them talk about who to assign blame to; my story didn't really match up with theirs but by the same token it all happened so fast and from so many angles that I couldn't have confidently defended my story to a group of people looking to push blame off of themselves. One thing that was weird though is that most of them told their story as if I wasn't even present, with the car that wound up behind me stating that she stopped behind the car that got t-boned... (as if my car wasn't directly in-between the two) It's whatever though, I explained what I saw to the motorist assistance guy and he recommended I just leave before the officer asked me for a statement and I got called to court to testify randomly for the next 6 months. Tired, confused, irritated, and thankful, I got the Hell out of there.
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I almost got in like 3 accidents today, no turning signals, merging without looking, running red lights, I even almost got run over as I walked out of the parking lot. I usually say I hate driving in general, but I really don't. I hate sharing the road with other people.
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Lol you all, but I would like to say here there was no 'keeping a level head' or me doing anything special here. All I did was see a giant wall of cars up way up ahead and stop casually.
That's terrible 40; a bad byproduct of us all being in a hurry. Kinda funny that driving isn't the tough part, it's driving with other people. I can't claim to be any better than anybody else; I get in just as much of a hurry sometimes. Though I'd like to believe I'm considerate enough to not run somebody over or off the road, we're all human and make mindless mistakes, like not paying attention. A dangerous recipe for the driver of a 2-ton death machine, but with as much as we drive it's easy to get complacent and careless when we're merely on our way to somewhere... Driving is the activity that leads up to another activity, so by our own premise the act of driving is secondary.
On a random side-note: I learned an interesting fact during driver improvement class. On a 30-mile trip, speeding 10 mph over can save you 5 minutes. If thats your drive to work, you gotta make it home. 5 more minutes for speeding. You make this trip 5 times a week, you just saved 50 minutes. That's 3.34 hours a month; 43.34 hours per year extra that we spend driving just 10 mph slower. Of course all this time is offset by the screw-ups we make while speeding, like crashing or getting pulled over, but it's an interesting math equation to set up.
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That's right Fonze. I routinely save 20-30 minutes on all my long-ass journeys to school. It's saved time that really adds up over the months. Just gotta be super aware of surroundings (eyes constantly moving, check all your spots, ears always open and listening for things out of the ordinary), know your time and place, and be ready for anything. Treat every driver as a potential threat and never take anything for granted.
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